WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump devoted day 90 of his presidency to celebrating veterans and football champions while, at the far side of the globe, his vice president talked tough in the face of North Korean belligerence.

In the evening, he dined at the White House with conservative darling Sarah Palin, gun rocker Ted Nugent and singer Kid Rock. During their visit, the trio struck a victory pose beneath the official portrait of Trump nemesis Hillary Clinton.

Star power

Days after the White House announced that it would not release visitor logs, the president hosted an unannounced dinner party that included Palin, the GOP's 2008 vice presidential nominee and a former Alaska governor, and two conservative musicians who also supported him during the 2016 campaign.

Palin posted photos from the Oval Office on Thursday morning, including one in which she is chatting with the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

"A great night at the White House. Thank you to President Trump for the invite!" she tweeted.

But it was the photo of Trump's dinner guests trolling the Clinton portrait that caught the most attention.

Nugent posted rambling thoughts on his Facebook page late Wednesday, along with a photo in which he and the president are shaking hands behind the desk in the Oval Office:

"So today is the 242nd anniversary of The Shot Heard Round The World is it! Well well well looky looky here boogie chillin', I got your Shot Heard Round The World right here in big ol greazyass Washington DC where your 1 & only MotorCity Madman WhackMaster StrapAssasin1 dined with President Donald J Trump at the WhiteHouse to Make America Great Again! Got that? Glowing all American over the top WE THE PEOPLE gory details coming ASAP!! BRACE!"

The White House did not provide its own readout of the encounter.

Highlights

Trump loves winning and winners, and all presidents love hanging out with sports champions. On Wednesday, Trump honored the New England Patriots for their overtime Super Bowl victory. But some players skipped the ceremony in protest, and attendance was down noticeably from years past.

Quarterback Tom Brady missed the event, though he announced that family obligations rather than any political differences were the reason.

Pats owner Robert Kraft, a Trump friend, compared the team's victory to Trump's in 2016- "a campaign for the presidency against 16 career politicians facing odds almost as long as we faced in the fourth quarter."

He handed the 45th president a jersey with number 45 on it.

"Five Super Bowl victories since 2002 -- really unbelievable," Trump said. "With your backs against the wall, and the pundits -- good old pundits; boy, they're wrong a lot, aren't they -- saying you couldn't do it, the game was over, you pulled off the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all time."

Second in command

Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, he declared that the United States would answer any attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response. He was in South Korea a day earlier, visiting the heavily fortified zone between the two nations and reassuring the U.S. allies in the south after Pyongyang's latest missile threats.

This US Navy handout photo shows US Vice President Michael R. Pence as he poses for a selfie with Sailors on the flight deck of the Navy's forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) on April 19, 2017 at Yokosuka, Japan.
The vice presidents tour of the ship and his remarks to US and Japanese service members highlighted the administrations continuing commitment to rebuilding the US military and to its alliances in the region.

(MC2 JAMAL MCNEILL/US NAVY)

The Trump agenda

The White House faced criticism on Wednesday for the deportation of Juan Manuel Montes, 23, a California resident who was deported in February. Montes had received protection under the DACA program authorized by President Barack Obama -- Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals, which was meant to shield immigrants from deportation if they were brought into the United States illegally as children.

The case has become a cause célèbre for immigrant advocates.

Adding to the intrigue, a lawsuit brought on behalf of Montes was assigned to the same federal judge, Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who had overseen a lawsuit brought against Trump University. Trump ended up settling that case for $25 million payable to students who claimed they'd been defrauded, but not before Trump had denounced the Indiana-born judge as biased because of his "Mexican heritage."

In this undated photo provided by the National Immigration Law Center shows Juan Manuel Montes, 23. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reverses itself on the status of Montes, who may be the first person who qualifies for a program to shield young immigrants to be deported by President Donald Trump. Authorities now acknowledge that Montes, qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but still defend the decision to return him to Mexico.

(Juan Gastelum/National Immigration Law Center)

Montes asserts that he was nabbed in the southern California city of Calexico on Feb. 17 for no reason, and then deported. Two days later he was caught climbing over a border wall, and was sent back to Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security insists they have no record of any federal agents encountering him on Feb. 17.

"Even if Montes-Bojorquez had informed agents of his DACA status, he had violated the conditions of his status by breaking continuous residency in the United States by leaving and then reentering the U.S. illegally," the department said late Wednesday.

Countdown

Ten days to go before the Trump administration hits the magic/arbitrary 100-day mark.

News outlets are already running assessments and the White House is being bombarded with queries.

"There's a lot of executive orders that I think the President has been pleased with -- not only what they've done and what will do, but what they've done," press secretary Sean Spicer said.

"Number one, we're not done," Spicer said when asked to assess Trump's biggest legislative achievements. "We've got a little ways before we hit the 100-day mark. So I think what you've seen out of this White House is a very robust agenda of activity. There's a lot of executive orders that I think the President has been pleased with -- not only what they've done and what will do, but what they've done. I think when you look at immigration, in particular, we see a very significant drop at the border. I think on jobs there's been a lot of activity that we've been very proud to see America manufacturing and job creation."

He also cited improvements to veterans health and regulatory reform, and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

"We'll obviously spend some time talking about this next week. But I think we're very pleased with what the President has accomplished," Spicer said.

Trumpspeak

In this U.S. Navy photo, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson transits the Sunda Strait on April 14 in Indonesia, some 3,500 miles from North Korea.

(U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

The White House struggled for a second day to explain why the president and aides had proclaimed that the U.S.S. Carl Vinson was en route to waters off North Korea when, in fact, the carrier and its strike group were heading in the opposite direction for exercises with the Australian Navy.

Pay close attention to the verb tense:

"The president said that we have an armada going towards the peninsula. That's a fact; it happened -- it is happening, rather," Spicer said.

Pressed to explain why the Vinson was heading away from Korean peninsula at the very moment Trump asserted that it was part of an armada steaming toward North Korea, Spicer referred reporters to the Pentagon.

"The statement that was put out was that the Carl Vinson Group was headed to the Korean Peninsula. It is headed to the Korean Peninsula. And it will arrive there," he said.

Reporter: It's headed there now. It wasn't headed there last week.

Spicer: Sure. No, no, no -- but that's not what we ever said. We said that it was heading there, and it was heading there -- it is heading there."

Coming and going

Wednesday was a day of upheaval for two of the most influential conservatives in Washington, neither a member of the administration.

From his perch at Fox News, Bill O'Reilly has had enormous impact for years. His ouster, after revelations of sexual misconduct and $13 million in payouts to victims of unwanted advances, left a gaping hole in the conservative media universe. After Fox fired him, he insisted he'd done nothing wrong.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hammered out that Exxon-Rosneft deal in 2012 when he was Exxon's CEO.

According to the Journal, "It isn't clear whether the request with the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control was made before Mr. Tillerson joined the Trump administration." Neither Treasury nor Exxon would discuss the waiver application.

What's next

On Thursday, Trump will host Italy's Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, and they will hold an afternoon news conference in the Rose Garden.

On Monday morning, Trump plans a 20-minute video call from the Oval Office with NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, who are orbiting Earth aboard the International Space Station. On Monday, Whitson will set a new record for the most days in space by an American astronaut.

April 27: Trump will hold a news conference to discuss veterans issues.

April 28: The federal government runs out of money unless Congress cuts a budget deal to avert a shutdown.

May 3: Trump will welcome Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.

May 17: Trump will deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Must see TV

Spicer -- a huge New England Patriots fan -- didn't seem to mind an interruption at his briefing from tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Tweeter in chief

It was a light day on the twitters. The president highlighted the veterans bill. And he framed a runoff in a conservative Atlanta-area congressional district as a win for Republicans, and a "Hollywood vs. Georgia" choice.

Dems failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia. Great job Karen Handel! It is now Hollywood vs. Georgia on June 20th.